


So What Are You, Like, Alternative Now?

by Dorasolo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roller Derby, F/F, F/M, Gen, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5453819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorasolo/pseuds/Dorasolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yeah, I’m fine. Totally fine,” she says, ignoring her bruised backside and ego. “Everybody falls sometimes, right?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You can't do that!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sparklyslug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklyslug/gifts).



Erica Bittle, at 22, is eternally grateful for her mother Arlene when they get off the plane in Boston, and her mother offers to drive the half-hour or so to Samwell so that Erica can take in the scenery through the window. It is, however, incredibly annoying that Arlene is half-singing along to the Oldies station and half sighing like Scarlet O’Hara. 

“Ok Mama, spit it out,” Erica says, annoyed, one eyebrow quirked. “Can’t have you breathing over there like Darth Vader.”

Arlene glances at her daughter out of the side of her eye, and silently continues paying attention to the road, still sighing. 

Tucking her light blonde, newly bobbed hair behind her ears, Erica stares at her mother. “I’m waiting, Mama.”

“Well then, I suppose I’ll just say that I think what you’re doing is brave.”

Erica grew up in Madison, Georgia, and now she’s moving to Samwell, Massachusetts, for culinary school, and it feels like she might as well be moving to Mars.

“Brave?!” Erica stares at her mother in shock. “Ok, that’s it. Who are you, what planet did you come from, and what have you done to my mother?”

Erica and Arlene have been arguing for what feels like decades about the move, and Erica has only recently been able to joke at all about her mother’s feelings. Erica wants something different from Madison, where her father still coaches high school football and where she spent her childhood going to the local gym to train with Katya, a former Soviet World Champ with two Olympic Gold medals in figure skating. Arlene would be thrilled if Erica announced that she was never going to leave again, because the years Erica spent at college at the University of Alabama - Birmingham skating on the team was more than enough separation. 

“I know, I know, I’ve been at your throat,” Arlene admits, smiling sheepishly.

“Mama, if only someone could win a gold medal for understatement, it’d be all yours.”

“Oh honey, I just thought that if you felt like you were too old for figure skating, you’d try pairs like the rest of the older skaters --”

Erica interrupts, for what is probably is the billionth time, “you’ve watched _The Cutting Edge_ way too many times.”

“And maybe, you’d fall for your partner, and you’d get married --”

“Admit it, Mama, you’ve been watching those terrible sequels on ABC Family, haven’t you.”

“Erica Beatrice, there is nothing wrong with wanting to know what happens to them after they kiss!”

Erica rolls her eyes and tosses a candy wrapper at her mother. “Maybe I don’t want to meet a figure skating partner and fall in love with him.”

It’s an old argument, the one her mother always uses when Erica would say that she was lonely in Birmingham. Erica is tired of everybody she knows and their mothers telling her that she should try pairs skating to meet a husband. 

Erica thinks about finding a husband, or even dating a guy, and pulls a face. While she and her mother are close, her mother is not blessed with a keen sense of observation when it comes to things she does not want to observe. Erica doesn’t want to date or marry a man at all.

Her sexuality isn’t something that she ever talked about before, and certainly not with her mother. Arlene has never asked and Erica knows that there is nothing about her, neither her love of figure skating, nor her love of baking pies, that would ever tip her off as being queer. 

Her mother misinterprets the face she's making, and keeps talking.

“I know I know, and you don’t want to see what those boys from high school grew up into either, I know when I’m beat,” Arlene grumbles, winking to show she’s kidding (sort of), and they pull off the highway towards Erica’s new apartment in Samwell in silence. It’s the first time the silence has been pleasant since she announced that she was going to take a break, perhaps a permanent one, from skating. 

The next day, argument forgotten as usual, Erica and Arlene shop in Boston to furnish her new apartment. She and Arlene set up her rooms, most notably the kitchen with its new oven. Arlene stops sulking for a bit to admire the space. It’s a quiet one bedroom near campus, and Erica keeps marveling over how great it is to have her own place, finally. 

Arlene leaves on a Thursday, and to her surprise, Erica cries off and on until Friday even though she's relieved to be on her own for the first time in her life; no parents, no coaches, no teammates, no roommates. She does admit that it’s weird not to have a 4am call to get to the rink, or a roommate, or even a coach who keeps her on track by only stocking paleo foods and complex carbohydrates. 

On Monday, she starts her cooking classes, and for the most part, loves them all. She and her classmates talk animatedly about starting a cooking channel on YouTube, and on Tuesday, Erica surprises them by making an introductory video about pecan pie. 

On Wednesday, Erica’s classmates Wendy and Nate take her to Annie’s for coffee, the place where the graduate students hang on weekdays to avoid the undergrads. She steps inside, buys a cup of coffee, and takes a seat by the back, looking at the brightly colored fliers on the walls. The poster that catches her eye is a large poster, in color, advertising for the Samwell Skullcrushers. 

She walks over to the poster to better see what a Samwell Skullcrusher is, and Wendy joins her.

“It’s the Samwell Roller Derby team,” Wendy says, “I’ve gone to a bout or two, and they’re super fun to watch! I’m not a skating superstar like you, so the idea of playing… Yeah, getting knocked down while on wheels is definitely not my thing.”

Erica looks at the girl on the poster, a tall, muscular, tattooed blonde girl in a white helmet with a black stripe down the middle, a maroon singlet, black shorts, several serious looking sets of padding, and black quad skates. The caption on the poster says “Do you want to be in a Chokeholtz? Get ready for Skullcrusher tryouts!” and then lists events entitled “free skates” several times over the next month. 

“I see you looking at that sign,” an attractive Asian man says, running a hand through his almost-too-long black hair so Erica can see his eyes. His brown eyes light up thoughtfully, sizing her up. “You look like you’re an athlete of some kind, am I right? I’m right. I’m almost never wrong,” he jokes, sticking out his hand. “I’m Lawrence Duan, and I’m the coach of the team. You can call me Lardo, everybody else does.” 

She takes his hand, and shakes it. “I’m Erica, and yes I am an athlete, or I guess I was an athlete, I’m a former figure skater,” Erica babbles, looking closer at the poster, opening her mouth to ask if what she’s seeing are quad skates. She doesn’t get a chance to speak before she’s interrupted.

“Oh no shit,” a tiny girl with brown-and-pink hair exclaims, shoving her oversized aviator sunglasses up on her head to reveal very green eyes. “Figure skating, hear that, Lards? The Skullcrushers could totally use you, bro. You should come to a free skate and hang with us!”

“Excuse her manners,” Lardo drawls, rolling his eyes and patting the tiny girl on the head affectionately. “Shitty doesn’t have a level lower than 11.”

The girl known as ‘Shitty’ sticks out her hand. “Shitty Pryde, number X for the Skullcrushers. But seriously, call me Shitty because everybody calls me Shitty, even my law school professors. But my last name is ‘Knight’ for real, not Pryde. That’s my derby name, you know, like Kitty Pryde? The X-Men?” 

“Erica Bittle,” Erica says, shaking hands and smiling, flummoxed by Shitty’s exuberance. “Maybe I will come to a free skate after all.” 

Stomach in knots, Erica walks into the 70s style roller rink where the Skullcrushers have practice twice a week. It’s the free skate, and she’s tried to back out of going all day long. Wendy and Nate are relentless when it comes to being joiners, so Eric knows when she’s been bested. Nate drove, and Wendy went so far as to sit in the back seat and shove at her to get out of the car. 

“We’ll come pick you up later, pumpkin,” Wendy calls, “play nice with the other girls and make some friends, young lady!”

Erica gestures crudely, a first for her, and smiles as Nate hoots his approval before driving away from the rink. Stepping inside, she notices about 25 girls milling about, some already on quad skates. The ones that are skating skate with huge differences in ability, from some who can barely stand, to some that fly around the rink with ease. Erica can’t help but feel a flare of competitive drive, and she likes it because it’s been awhile since she’s felt that feeling.

She rents her skates, because quad skates and all the accompanying padding are expensive and she has no idea if this is something she can even do, even though her inner voice is screaming to get moving because she has girls to beat.

Lardo is pacing around the rink with a clipboard, taking notes. Shitty is inexplicably kicking a soccer ball at the wall, where it bounces dangerously close to the rink. 

A tall, slender black woman with beautiful dreadlocks calls for their attention. “Hi everybody! I’m Justine Oluransi. You can call me Justine, or Ransom Note. I’m here to remind you that before you even think of lacing up your skates, come see me to sign this waiver. If you want to know why you have to sign a waiver, or want to nitpick the details of the waiver, please go see Shitty so she can get extra credit in law school.”

Erica signs the waiver as Justine continues talking, gesturing to the tattooed blonde girl from the recruitment poster. “Due to the absence of our esteemed captain for at least the first hour, I’m leading this free skate with Amanda Birkholtz, or as she is better known, Chokeholtz, or Holster if you’re feeling feisty.” 

Amanda waves. “The goal of today is just for you guys to feel comfortable on skates, get your bearings. I know some of you have some experience on quads but we want to see exactly how much. When Jacq gets here, she’ll run through some land drills to show you what kind of exercises you’ll need to be doing to get into shape for roller derby, the kind of things you can do at home without skates. So until then, let’s skate!”

Pulling on her quad skates, Erica feels very confident until she stands up, windmills, and immediately falls back down. Blushing in abject embarrassment, she hopes nobody saw her fall. 

“Everybody falls sometimes,” Shitty says, helpfully, suddenly by her side. 

“Yeah,” Erica mutters. “There’s no toepick on these things. How the heck do you even stop?”

“You get used to it,” Shitty teases, holding out her hand. “Come on, Figure Skater, I know you can do it.” 

Once she’s in the rink, Erica does get used to being on the wheels, getting faster and faster as she goes around in circles, almost not noticing the envious looks on some of the other girls’ faces. 

“Oh _hell_ yes,” Chokeholtz yells at the girls skating by, and she and Ransom Note high five. “This is going to be epic!” 

“This is going to be ‘swawesome,” Shitty agrees, loudly, racing by Erica and edging her out by just a hair. “By the end of the month you’ll beat me!” 

Erica is proud of herself, so proud of herself, and so caught in the moment, she doesn’t notice who has arrived and who has left. When she skates by where she thought Lardo was standing with Ransom Note, she looks up, hand up to wave hello.

What she sees is not Lardo, but instead a tall, broad shouldered girl with black hair and ice blue eyes, watching her intently. Whoever she is, she is the most beautiful girl Erica has ever seen. And just like that, she loses her balance and goes crashing into the wall. 

Wanting to die of embarrassment all over again, she tries to stand up. A hand is in her face from up above, reaching down to help her get to her feet.

“Holy shit, are you ok?”

It’s the girl. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Totally fine,” she says, ignoring her bruised backside and ego. “Everybody falls sometimes, right?” Erica laughs nervously, heart in her throat.

“Sure do, but that looked wicked because you were going so fast. What’s your name?”

“Erica. Erica Bittle.”

“I’m Jacq Zimmermann. Don’t worry too much about the fall. You looked pretty good out there, Erica.”

Erica will look back at this moment hundreds of times and die twelve deaths every single time she thinks of what happens next. To her eternal mortification, she hears herself tell Jacq, “thanks, you look pretty good out there, too.”


	2. Is this what you do with all the girls?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That’s probably why she shouldn’t bring a soccer ball to roller derby practice, but since when did law school stop her from making bad decisions?" 
> 
> Or, an introduction to one B. Shitty Knight, or Shitty Pryde, Number X, for the Samwell Skullcrushers!

Brooke “Shitty” Knight, or Shitty Pryde, or Shits, or whatever the hell else you want to call her but not Brooke, tries as hard as she can not to doze in her afternoon Contracts class by mainlining a terrible espresso drink from the law school’s coffee bar. Despite the exorbitant price of law school, the answer to whether or not they can afford decent coffee is a resounding “no.” 

She tries to look as interested as possible, because while she is a pretty smart girl with her double majors in Political Science and Gender Studies, with a minor in Economics, she doesn’t even pretend that she’s smart enough to just wing it and blow off studying in law school. Class, on the other hand… She considers blowing off class at least once every day and twice on the days she actually has Contracts class. She does _not_ care about whether or not widgets were bargained for or ordered properly or if the widget boat sinks. Shitty is at law school so she can help people who can’t afford widgets.

All 5’0” of her slumps down into her uncomfortable chair so that her pink and brown striped head can’t be seen behind her laptop screen, and she takes the opportunity to text her old roommate Jacqueline Zimmermann under the tiny table masquerading as a desk in the small lecture hall that is first year Contracts. Shitty is worried about Jacq because it’s the third anniversary of Jacq’s release from rehab, a fact Shitty was more than well acquainted with after living with Jacq for three years, one year in the dorm, and two years in the duplex houses outside of Samwell University. 

Shitty sends no less than seventeen emojis to Jacq, knowing how much Jacq hates emojis and text abbreviations and tries not to chuckle when she gets the desired response, Jacq telling her that she doesn’t speak emoji and requires actual words if Shitty actually has a real thing to tell her. Jacq has a curmudgeonly old person’s brain in a young woman’s body, and she’s Shitty’s best friend and she loves her. 

She takes a picture of the exchange and sends it to their de-facto third roommate from college, Laurence ‘Lardo’ Duan, her really patient, really cool, really busy boyfriend who’s probably in a work meeting and shouldn’t be texting, either. 

It doesn’t stop him from sending her a baby goat gif. She smiles. He’s a keeper. Because his graphics design firm is located conveniently near her law school, he’ll pick her up for practice if she promises not to bring the soccer ball to the roller rink. As if that’s even a remote possibility. The soccer ball is definitely coming to the roller rink, because why wouldn’t she bring a soccer ball? 

The entire first semester of Torts class comes rushing at her in a mental heap. That’s probably why she shouldn’t bring a soccer ball to roller derby practice, but since when did law school stop her from making bad decisions? 

Mercifully, class ends and Shitty grabs her enormous skate bag, heading to her favorite cubicle in the library to get some reading done before Skullcrashers practice later. Shitty is one of the jammers on the team, one of the top points scorers. She's little, fast, and fierce but when she falls she goes flying. Right now she's sporting one hell of a thigh bruise, but it doesn't matter, because derby is life and life is derby so she's gladly giving up her later years to arthritis just to skate.

Shitty studies until about a quarter after six when Lardo comes to get her in the Jetta they've affectionately named “Beretta” because of the noise it made when the hubcap fell off onto the highway. He waves and she waves back enthusiastically because she's always happy to see him even when his hair looks like he's a weird fashion model, which it does today. She totally just likes to look at him and his cheekbones. 

Hurriedly, because they're probably going to be late and lateness is a problem she has, but it's not exactly tolerated, she hops into the backseat without kissing him hello and starts changing into her practice gear. Pants first, because they're the easiest. 

“Shits,” Lardo says.

She ignores him, a little because she'll say hi soon enough, but mostly because her shirt is over her head and she can't really focus on talking while she swaps bras in the backseat of a car. 

“Shits.”

“What?” 

“I can't drive when I can see your tits in the rear view,” he grins, tapping on the steering wheel.  
“But also there's somebody in the front seat besides me and she's trying very hard not to die.”

Shitty hurriedly tugs her ‘Skate-a-Saurus Rex’ muscle tee down over her sports bra and composes herself for a moment before speaking. “Jesus,” she breathes, “I'm so sorry. I was in my own little world and really not meaning to sexually harass you in this car. I assure you, the team is much, much more respectful of boundaries than I am. Please, please, excuse me. What's your name?”

Lardo’s shoulders are shaking with laughter at her lawyerly response. He clears his throat and introduces them, “Willow Poindexter, this is Shitty Knight.”

Willow murmurs hello and a “s’okay” and stares out the window, her cheeks super pink, saying nothing else for the rest of the ride.

Shitty spends the rest of the ride texting Jacq about how she's finally going die of embarrassment because she's definitely flashed some fresh meat. She assures Jacq it was entirely unintentional because Jacq’s middle of her eyebrow wrinkle doesn't have to get worse. While Shitty is not body-conscious in the slightest and not particularly prone to wearing pants in public, she usually warns people before she gets naked in a car. 

The roller rink doesn't appear off the highway soon enough. 

Willow scurries inside the rink with a backwards look of utter disdain for Shitty, who in turn tosses a stricken look at Lardo. Lardo puts his arm around her, kisses her on the head affectionately and drops his voice to a whisper.

“You can always, always flash me from backseat of my car. It was definitely the highlight of my entire week, and I'll probably miss analyzing the other girls on the track because I'll be thinking about your --”

Shitty slugs him lightly in his arm, drawing a finger down his forearm afterwards to make it better. “Stop right there, you scoundrel. I need to be able to skate without getting distracted, _and_ I promised Jacq I'd tell you to do your job while she's gone.”

Lardo looks comically hurt. “I always do my job, you rogue.”

She flashes an impish grin at him and waggles an eyebrow at the double entendre. He rolls his eyes, and motions to her to get her skates on.

Shitty is pleased to note a bit later that the willowy blonde figure skater they met at coffee walked in, and Shitty gives Lardo a thumbs up from the rink, promptly ducking out to her phone (and the soccer ball!) to text Jacq again.

‘The figure skater showed!’

In her excitement, she forgets all emojis.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been rolling around in my head (get it? rolling around?) for awhile, but when [sparklyslug](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklyslug/pseuds/sparklyslug) requested genderswapped Check Please! it gave me a good reason to try my hand at writing the girls of Samwell Roller Derby, specifically the Skullcrushers. As always, thanks to Ngozi for creating these magical creatures that I've used for my own purposes. Also, a super extra thanks to my beta people [defcontwo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo) and [CallMeBombshell](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell). Extra brownie points for you if you know the title's reference.
> 
> Find me on Twitter as tuberculisa!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [when it’s with me you're messing i’m gonna teach you a lesson](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7091497) by [teaspoon82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspoon82/pseuds/teaspoon82)




End file.
